Zane Smith Scores Speedfest Pole, Ty Majeski Inverted to P1

Zane Smith was both fast and lucky on Saturday night at Watermelon Capital Speedway, posting the overall fastest time in Speedfest qualifying while also limiting the damage with an invert draw of five.

The pill draw only dropped Smith to fifth for the start of the race and placed two-time and defending ARCA Midwest Tour champion Ty Majeski on the point.

Smith was the first qualifier in CRA Super Late Model time trials and posted a best lap of 15.698 seconds around the third-mile Georgia short track. At the time, the racing surface was expected to cool down and gain speed but Smith was just fast enough to hold off 2014 Snowball Derby champion John Hunter Nemechek by five one-hundreths of a second.

Smith, the 2014 New Smyrna World Series champion, said he has felt capable of winning since they unloaded and proceeded to back it up in qualifying.

“I definitely think we have a good chance of winning,” Smith said. “I mean, we’re one of the best on older tires — I can tell you that already. We’re so good on old tires that we might be able to take two tires at the break tomorrow and get that good track position.

“It’s a long race and our car is fast so it’s just going to be up to me.”

In his typically reserved fashion, Majeski simply said he feels confident as long as he catches all the right breaks on Sunday.

“We’re more confident in our race trim than our qualifying trim,” Majeski said. “We just didn’t have the speed in it today that we had yesterday. We feel pretty good about qualifying fifth and we’ll take starting first with the dice roll. I like our chances if we can manage our tires and not get too much pressure from behind.”

William Byron, Cole Anderson and Majeski completed the top five by the end of the day. Reigning and defending Sprint Cup Series champion Kyle Busch posted the 10th fastest time in the session.

Only the top-20 in qualifying made it into the main event, with the rest of the 36-car having to compete in a last chance race. Only six cars will transfer into the 26-car Super Late Model main event.

Harrison Burton was amongst the fastest in practice throughout the day but spun during his warm-up lap — zapping the speed from his Toyota branded Super Late Model. He will start sixth in a LCQ that also includes Mason Massey, Bret Holmes and Bo LeMastus.

Burton should enter the 25-lap heat as the favorite but knows he will have to keep his nose clean.

“It’s going to be a tough race,” Burton said. “I have to stay in a transfer spot and not make any more mistakes. This is a pretty good car so we want to make sure we have enough for the big race too.”

The event will be televised online via Speed51.com’s 51 TV Pay-Per-View service.  The entire Sunday event features a 100-lap JEGS Tour Pro Late Model race, followed by the 200-lap CRA Super Series main event. The broadcast can be purchased for $27.99.

The complete qualifying results for CRA Speedfest can be found below. The top-20 have advanced to the main event.